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The Morning Porch

Daily short takes from an Appalachian hollow

The Morning Porch
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September 24, 2020 by Dave Bonta

Two squirrels trace a fast single helix down the trunk of the big maple. The typewriter rattle of their claws.

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Categories Plummer's Hollow Tags gray squirrel, red maple
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On This Day

  • June 30, 2025
    Overcast and cool. In the daylily patch at the base of the walnut tree next to the road, there’s a changing of the guard as yesterday’s trumpets go limp and today’s ease open, orange and buzzing.
  • June 30, 2024
    The edge of a small storm an hour past sunrise brings another shower and a restless breeze. From the treetops, the sound of nestlings begging to be fed.
  • June 30, 2022
    Another perfect morning. A wood thrush is singing next to the springhouse. The surrealism of it all when distilled into memory come December.
  • June 30, 2021
    Mist in the meadow and among the trees where the first sunbeams look almost solid. Crows, wren, catbird, common yellowthroat.
  • June 30, 2016
    A catbird darts into the weeds. I stand up to look: it’s gobbling down the first ripe raspberries. The buzz of a hummingbird at the beebalm.

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Related book

Cover of Ice Mountain with a linocut of a big ridgetop tree.

What I do after I sit on the porch. One winter and spring's daily walks distilled into short poems with linocut illustrations by Beth Adams.

Header image: detail from Paper Garden by Clive Hicks-Jenkins (used by permission)

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